Mending a broken heart…

I’ve heard there’s an equation for the time it takes to heal after a breakup. They say it takes 2 weeks for every month of the relationship. I just recently broke up with my boyfriend after 2 years together. My heart is hurting, sometimes so much, it is unbearable. Will it really take 1 year to heal? This seems so unimaginable. Does this mathematical statement take into consideration how the relationship ended? It is less time to heal if it ended badly or more time if it ended mutually?

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Any life experiences or advice will be helpful for this lonely-heart club member…

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Jen – Am sorry you are hurting; there is definitely a grieving process when one loses someone they love. In my humble opinion, the length of time it takes to recover has to do with the depth of the relationship rather than a specific amount of time. The greater the shared interests, mutual respect and genuine caring, the greater the loss and the longer to heal. I tend to share Alfred Lord Tennyson’s view ‘Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all. Just give yourself some time to heal and then move on to find your soul mate. Caringly, Ranae

HiJen,
I,am sorry to know about your break up with your boyfriend. Really it’s very painful when a person hurts us whom we love too much. But have patience, surely you will be united together. As you know separation enhances love. So if the love the true, no obstacle can stand in your path. So just try to understand each other and everything will be fine soon.

My heart goes out to you Jen. Time will heal your wounds, but the exact amount of time can never be calculated. Tennyson’s quote definitely helps one to understand their loss, but in my experience being with family and friends helps ease the pain the best.
Surround yourself with positivity and do your best to wipe the slate clean (meaning your life and prior habits with your former significant other).
Time does heal all wounds, but the ride can and will be bumpy.

Oh Jen, I’m still going through what you just began. What you need to do in order to help yourself is take stock in all that wasn’t right with your relationship. Not so that it can be “fixed” per se, but rather that you can see the things you ignored before.

It may feel like a major shock to your system right now… but knowing why it ended (the real reasons, not the ones you’ve either guilted yourself or allowed yourself to be guilted into believing) can help.

You’re probably still at the whole, “We were PERFECT together,” stage… That’s just your brain reacting to the fact that you’re not together anymore. Step back and think about the arguments and the annoyances and the little things he did that drove you crazy. Think about the issues and the truth about where your future would’ve gone.

I don’t go for all the cliche lines like “Love finds you when you least expect it,” and I don’t hold faith in any of the timelines or anything like that. What I do know is that your life is up to YOU. How you react to things, how you internalize things, and how you let things affect you long term.

Take the time to rediscover yourself. Did your relationship make you lose touch with any old friends you might be missing? Give them a call. Was there anything you used to love doing, but stopped, because he never wanted to do it and you’d rather had spent time with him? Go do those things again.

Whatever you do, do not fall into the depths of solitude. You really DO need your friends, you DO need to get dressed up and go out, you DO need to get out of the house. With my situation, I locked myself up in the house for a week and didn’t even tell anyone but my mom what had happened. Not good. When I did talk about it, all my friends were clamoring for me to go out, even just for dinner or coffee or something. It’s important that you don’t break up with yourself right now… you know?

Anyway, before I ramble on too much, just know that it does get easier. If it helps, when you think you just can’t survive it, remember that your 2 years is a blink of the eye for some relationships that have ended for others, who survived and THRIVED!

Jen, I’ve been where you are right now. It’s a hard place to be. It’s so tempting to withdraw into one’s self when going through this pain. Don’t! MAKE yourself be around people who love and support you. For me, I got really involved in my church group, went to great places, leaned on my family and stayed as busy as possible. I still would cry and missed him terribly. When I felt myself slipping into a depression over our break-up, I’d jump up and not give in. I’d call someone, go somewhere – whatever it took to get out of the slump I was in. Then, after much growing and learning – the LOVE OF MY LIFE (that I’d known for several years) came into church, greeted me, and after talking awhile – ask if he could sit with me. THE REST IS HISTORY! We found out that we NEEDED each other. Our mouths never stopped talking that first night we went for coffee. The camaraderie we shared was unbelievable! I KNEW THAT VERY FIRST NIGHT that we’d be together forever. I love him more than I ever thought I could love anyone. I look back and KNOW THAT the “BREAK-UP” was just what I needed. Jen, you will TOO one day. Live your life to the fullest and allow that special person to just walk into your life, when you least expect it! Oh, how exciting that is!

I don’t think that equation would be accurate, just observe it, using other words it says that you’re going to take one half the time your relation last, to heal from it. Along the time I’ve helped people to recover from break ups, I’ve seen people getting out of depression into two moths from a three year relationship and people taking more than two years from a six-month relation. Do you know what was the difference according to my point of view? First, how deeply the person was in love, or how much the person depended on the ex-math (because sometimes the trouble is dependency on the other person, not love), and second, the willingness of the person to fix the trouble and cooperate to receive help. Jen, you will start to recover from your problem as soon as you wanted to, I’m completely sure of it, I don’t know how much time it will take, but it will be fore sure less than a year.